He exulted. The tide had turned in favor of Sparta! It was time he delivered the deathblow to the walking monstrosity and join with his men once again.
It was then that the Colossus reared up and toppled forward. Kratos saw the harbor water rushing at him—and then the statue slammed facedown in the water. The hollow insides of the metallic giant filled quickly with water, and the water began to boil as it touched the magically driven gears and rods within. Kratos felt his lungs approaching the bursting point as the Colossus dived ever deeper into the harbor. More breath escaped his lungs when ooze from the sea bottom filled the eyes and mouth of the statue. He tried to fight his way through, but he became dizzy from lack of air and it proved impossible to penetrate the slippery ooze from the harbor to escape the Colossus.
Swinging his sword, refusing to yield, Kratos felt the blade impact metal and then sink deeply. As the last of his breath rushed forth, he found himself sucking in not water but air. The Colossus rose from its watery grave and again shook, as if it might dislodge him. He drove his blade deep into the inner cheek and held fast.
The statue creaked and groaned with metal tearing away. It went wild when Kratos twisted his sword about.
Leaning out and peering upward, Kratos saw what must be the brain of the animated killing statue. With a powerful jump, he soared into space, deftly caught a rope strung across the open central shaft, and made his way across to a ladder disappearing into the head above. He began climbing until he reached a platform looking out directly to a juncture where half a dozen shimmering beams joined in a single burning-bright gear mechanism.
A narrow walkway took him to the brain mechanism, with its reduction gears and potent energy beams stretching out in all directions to animate the statue. He ducked under a slowly swinging pendulum, then attacked the gears with a vengeance born of frustration and anger at how he had been used so grievously by the gods—by Ares and now by Athena.
He sliced repeatedly with the Blade of Olympus, each cut inducing a huge shudder in the Colossus. Torturing it thusly, Kratos continued to cut until pieces of the gears began to peel away. Each carried a little more of the life force with it, until the gears and shaft no longer rotated smoothly. Only then did he thrust the sword directly into the center of the brain mechanism. This time the feel of energy draining was extreme.
The Colossus shook as if caught in an earthquake, forcing Kratos to grab a stanchion to keep from being thrown from his precarious perch. He held the blade in the center of the gears, watching the bluish glow fade to a dull red and then vanish entirely. Cold satisfaction filled him at thwarting Athena and her bronze killer.
As the Colossus shook, the scaffolding circling its interior began to fall down the central shaft. Kratos withdrew the blade, and the shaft that had provided the brain function with all its gears fell straight down. The entire structure was coming apart. Kratos circled the head and crawled out the mouth to the lips. The earsplitting sounds of tearing metal were overshadowed by a more ominous noise. It wasn’t a burning or hissing but something more, something worse.
Kratos tumbled out past the lips and caught a gust of fresh air blowing across the harbor. As he turned to look upward at the Colossus, the odor changed to burning metal. With a powerful leap, Kratos sailed through the air. An instant later the bronze head exploded as if it had been packed with Greek fire. Bronze shrapnel blasted forth in all directions. The shock wave caught him in its grip and hurried him along his way. Kratos’ legs pumped hard, as if he ran in midair. He landed in a crouch on a stone balcony, the Blade of Olympus blazing brightly in his grip.
He stood, threw back his head to face skyward, and bellowed, “Do you see, gods of Olympus? Do you need more proof than this?”
The whistle of metal in the air brought him around in time to see the Colossus collapsing toward him. Kratos thrust up the blade, but the bronze hand of the statue smashed him flat and sent the weapon sailing through the air.
As the Blade of Olympus left his hand, Kratos knew despair. All his godly power had been drained into it. Without it in his grip, he was mortal. Only mortal. He moved and felt liquid movement within his body. Organs had been ruptured. His muscles were puny and refused to obey. But even as a mortal, Kratos had more than simple physical strength. Indomitable will pulled him from under the bronze hand pinning him to the stone floor.
He dropped to hands and knees as he vomited blood. Pain racked his body, but the antidote for his problems was in sight. The Blade of Olympus had spun through the air and once more embedded itself in the stone. A dozen yards away. Only a dozen yards. He pulled his feet under him.
Dizziness forced Kratos back to hands and knees. More blood erupted from his mouth and nose to spatter wetly on the stone beneath him. He rose to his knees, armor falling from his body like autumn leaves from a tree. His injuries would have been far greater without that protection. But now it only weighed him down, and its loss was a boon.
He looked up and saw Spartan soldiers gathering, just at the periphery of his blurred vision. They pointed, and he heard one say, “Kratos has fallen!” Another lamented, “How can this be? Why does our god struggle?”
He wanted to call to them, to assure them he would again be their god.
His legs wobbled under him as he stumbled painfully to his feet once more. Blood trickled from his nose, and bile burned in his throat. As he limped toward the blade, his wrath built anew. For an instant he had felt triumph, but now the old, familiar rage against the petty gods that had seared his soul for so many years returned to consume him. Survival drove him forward step by step.
“What power could possibly defeat the God of War?”
Kratos saw the Spartans start toward him, then stop and turn to meet an assault by a ragtag band of defenders of the city. The Rhodesian soldiers saw in his humiliation the chance for victory. They attacked with screams and flashing weapons. If he was to come to the aid of his devoted soldiers, he had to reach the Blade of Olympus.
As he approached the weapon, a huge eagle flew into sight, flapping slowly as it descended from above.
“You think to kill me?” Kratos grated out. He drew the Blades of Athena and faced the eagle as it screeched once and interposed itself between him and his goal. The eagle had sapped strength from him to animate the Colossus of Rhodes, and now it interposed itself between him and salvation, not only for himself but for his soldiers valiantly fighting and dying under the Rhodesians’ onslaught. He struggled to lift the heavy blades. Muscles screamed in agony across his shoulders, and his arms turned weaker than a mewling infant’s. Kratos stumbled forward a step and let his anger build. The blades came up in shaking hands, but if he must die, he would die a soldier.
The immense eagle landed, talons scratching the stone floor. Lightning bathed it as it changed form.
“Zeus!” Kratos tried to understand what was happening. The tips of the blades sank, no matter how hard he fought to lift them in his own defense.
“Yes, I am forced to attend to this matter myself,” Zeus said, striding forward. To reach the Blade of Olympus now Kratos would have to shove aside the King of the Gods—and he could barely stagger, so drained had he become from his battle with the Colossus. “Athena refused to undo her mistake. Imagine caring for a creature such as yourself.”
“Why? Why would you betray me?”
“It is you who would betray me! Am I to sit idly by as Olympus is threatened? Your hands are already stained by the blood of a god. I will not let Ares’ fate be my own.” Zeus grabbed the Blade of Olympus and drew it from its stony sheath.
“The gods are petty and pathetic, and your rule is weak.”
“I grow tired of this insolence. I am King of Olympus. And it is my way that is the way of the gods. You must vow to forever serve me!”
Kratos sneered. With all his strength, he swung the Blades of Athena back and forth in front of him, weaving a curtain of steel as he advanced on the King of the Gods.
“I serve no one.”
“Then you leave me no choice.”
Zeus attacked, the Blade of Olympus slashing through the air—and Kratos’ chest. No armor could have protected flesh from such a powerful blow. Pain exploded within him as he staggered back.
“Submit!” Zeus roared and began advancing, his blade cutting away bits of Kratos with every slash.
Kratos was aware of the Spartans watching their god in battle with Zeus. He would not yield because of them. He would not yield because he was Kratos, Ghost of Sparta!
“I would rather die!” He blocked a thrust from Zeus’ blade but was pressed backward.
Zeus doubled the ferocious attack, forcing Kratos into an entirely defensive fight. Cuts appeared on his body and massive arms. Then Zeus thrust, pushing aside Kratos’ blades as if he brushed away blades of grass.
Kratos toppled backward and grabbed the Blade of Olympus with both hands to prevent it from piercing his chest.
“It does not have to end like this,” Zeus said.
The sneer on Kratos’ face sealed his fate if his words did not. “A choice from the gods is as useless as the gods themselves.”
Zeus roared in anger.
“Even with your last breath, you continue to defy me?”
He thrust forward, driving the tip of the blade through Kratos’ heart. For a moment Zeus paused, the blade remaining within. Then he yanked it free. A pulse of pure light rose from Kratos.
Zeus knelt and whispered, “Everything you have known, Kratos, will now suffer because of your sacrilege. You will never be ruler of Olympus. The cycle ends here.”
Zeus leaped to his feet, turned, and—using the blade that had defeated the Titans—swung it in a broad arc that sent coruscating blue energy slashing through the nearby brave Spartans. Dying screams were ripped from their throats. Kratos realized that these were merely the first to die by Zeus’ hand. Those Spartans, no matter where they were in Rhodes, would suffer a similar fate as the raging, unstoppable disk of energy sawed through them.
“You will pay for this, Zeus. Be certain of that.”
Zeus towered above him, then began to fade. Kratos’ vision blurred and turned dark.
THE EARTH SHOOK, as if shivering with a tremendous fever. Giant cracks appeared along entire continents, and small mountains rose as Gaia’s spirit stirred. Formless, of the earth, the earth, and yet lacking in substance, she stretched and began to take note of the world as it had become after the war with the gods.
The Titanomachy, the Great War she and the rest of the Titans had lost.
Gaia looked about and saw small changes, but for a Titan they meant little. Her focus sharpened and found the mortal whose life she had followed from his earliest days. It had not been apparent why she showed such interest in this mortal until Kratos showed valor and skill in battle as a minor officer in the Spartan army. Eagerly, Gaia had watched his steady rise in the ranks until he became the commander of the most victorious army in the history of that city-state.
She had realized then the chance for power had returned, just beyond her grasp, but growing nearer by the instant. For a Titan, time was meaningless, and yet she had to abide since it was so important to the short-lived mortals. Worse, time had ceased to have meaning because her physical form had been ripped away, leaving behind only inchoate spirit.
His military career had soared even as his personal life proved tragic, but she saw how the gods played with their mortal pawn, cajoling and promising and manipulating him for their own ends.
Her anger had mounted as Zeus entered the drama, but still Gaia could do naught but watch and wait. The gods would make an error that could be seized upon, and the eternal struggle between god and Titan would resume. For the moment Zeus and the gods might hold the upper hand, but Gaia witnessed how they misunderstood what a deadly weapon they forged in Kratos, their new God of War. If they could not appreciate him, she would.
Gaia stretched and flexed her ghost-limbs, which extended to the core of the world, and now slowly rose to the surface once more as her anger mounted. She and the other Titans had been banished when Zeus had defeated them, but the opportunity presented itself anew to depose the ungrateful gods. Zeus, of all sitting on Olympus, ought to show remorse at what he had done to his father Cronos, to the other Titans. The Sisters of Fate had decreed the destiny of the gods, and Zeus now failed to appreciate their gift. The Sisters had chosen poorly the victor in that war.
His betrayal of Kratos and the confusion and ferment building among the gods made this the perfect time to strike. But gently at first, not to arouse their attention, slowly she must forge the weapon that first Ares had used, then Athena, and finally Zeus. Gaia had watched Kratos throughout his life and knew that now was the time.
Now.
“I NOTICED IT only a moment ago,” said Lahkesis, excited. “Seldom does a ripple return to the loom like this.” She floated upward, her scepter-mounted scythe flashing in the dull light of the Loom Chamber. Her skirts swirled around bare legs, and her upper garb draped down over only one breast, leaving the other exposed in the style of some mortal city-state—the style had caught her fancy, but she misremembered which it was now. Perhaps she had used the scythe to slice through their thread of fate and had long since removed them. At moments such as this, she appreciated the freedom such dress gave. She swung the scythe back and forth menacingly.
“Someone has evaded their destiny, the destiny we have decreed? Impossible!”
“No, not that. His fate is sealed, but the circumstances surrounding it are not what I expected.”
“You made a mistake?” Atropos was amused at her sister’s plight. “I have told you that you need to cut more carefully, think more fully, and only then begin your work. After all, Clotho spins the fate, I determine the duration, and you are the … executioner.”
“Really,” Lahkesis said, sniffing in disdain. “I enjoy myself. You and Clotho are too earnest and never take any pleasure in your contrivances.”
“Contrivances? Is that what you call meting out destiny to an entire world filled with mortals and gods?”
“You neglected to mention the animals in the forest and the fishes in the ocean,” Lahkesis said.
“Only you take pleasure in deciding which of them end up as mortals’ dinner.” Atropos stroked along a thread of rainbow colors using one of her long talons, as if she caressed a small pet. The black fog that was her legs and feet swirled up around her waist, then settled back as she bestirred herself in this argument with her sister.
“Or as a mortal’s lover,” Lahkesis said, smirking. “Lest you forget some of my more memorable couplings and their offspring.”
“Only you could take pride in such things. Forging destiny is serious work, work you need to properly apply yourself to or the world will come crashing down. All must fit perfectly. The pieces cannot have sharp edges or the threads of our work might be sundered.”
Lahkesis dismissed such foolishness with a wave of her graceful hand. She had impossibly strong fingers, as did her sisters, if Atropos’ talons or Clotho’s bony appendages protruding from the mass of her corpulent body could be described in such a fashion, from their long centuries of toil at the Loom of Fate. But more than simple manipulation went into the tapestries of inevitability they created from moment to moment. Her sisters did not appreciate the necessity of enjoying one’s work and doing more than simply decreeing a death or a war’s outcome through valor or cowardice. They controlled the mortals, but the gods proved themselves even more diverting.
“The next thing you’ll say you want is to resurrect the Titans,” Atropos said.
Lahkesis thought for a moment. “The last war between god and Titan was amusing. It occupied our th
oughts and work for some centuries.”
“But Clotho and I ended it. You would have allowed it to linger on. There is more than personal enjoyment to our duty.”
“What more can there be?” Lahkesis asked. “Look at the thread that so interested me.”
“The one that you mentioned?”
“Kratos is most fascinating. I know you’ve looked at it. Don’t deny that! A mortal, a mortal empowered by a god he kills, then a god himself.”
“Hmmm,” Atropos said, looking over her sister’s sloping shoulder and touching the ebon strand that had caused such a commotion. The vibrations damped out even as she pressed her thumb talon to the thread of his destiny. “He is dead.”
“Dying,” Lahkesis corrected. “He is bound for the Underworld and Hades’ ungentle tortures. I should—”
“You should pay attention to proper work and stop playing with this toy,” snapped Atropos. “The more you waste your effort on broken mortals such as Kratos, the greater the work Clotho and I must shoulder.”
“Kratos is an engrossing god. We ordained that he die and he has, but not in the fashion expected. How diverting! Zeus is becoming more irrational by the day and all the more fun to watch.”
“Work such as we do is not entertainment.”
“It doesn’t need to be completely tedious, either,” Lahkesis complained. “We need diversions from the tawdry, ordinary fate so many mortals endure.”
“You sound as if you long for the days of the Great War.” Atropos finished a new thread, half smiled in satisfaction at a job competently done, then reached over and touched the thread of fate wrapped around Kratos’ destiny. “Nothing. He is bound for the Underworld now and good riddance. He distracted you overmuch from your real work.”
“As you say, sister,” Lahkesis said. She waited for Atropos to begin a more complex measuring of the fate for a smallish volcano in that boot-shaped peninsula. Lahkesis nodded in approval. Many of the destinies ended with the mortals being encased in blocks of lava. She swung her crook about, the sharp inner blade coming down—almost—on many of the threads. If she did not cut, those in the lava blocks would not die but would remain encased alive. But which should deserve such fate? So much planning went into such a disaster. Mortals’ lives had to be plotted out and ended at the precise instant, except those to be saved for more intricate diversions. Lahkesis wanted to play some with the survivors but knew her sisters would never permit it. They always denied her such explorations.
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